System is very slow when power is turned on.....

I just started having a problem when I first turn my PC on. It is very slow coming up onto the Internet and my email.

Once I reach down and push the On/Off button to turn the PC on, it will come up quickly and then I click on my name and my desktop with all of my Icons will also come up quickly, but then it takes forever before I can open up my email and is also very slow getting on the I-net. I will click on the IE Icon and it will take up to 1-2 minutes before I can get on.

I am using Windows XP with Internet Explorer, high-speed cable modem with Charter Pipeline.

Once I get on the I-net, everything is fine and I have fast downloads, the problem is just when turn my PC on. If my PC would stay in Stand-By mode, everything comes up quick, but if I shut down the system, it takes forever to come up the next time.

Most of the time when I get thru using my PC for that day, I would go to Start/Log Off/Log Off/Turn Off Computer/ STAND-BY and then all I would have to do is wiggle the mouse and I could click on the IE Icon or email icon and "boom" I was on in just a few seconds, but now when I tell it to Stand-By, it will go into Stand-By mode and then a minute later the computer will come back up to the screen where my name is and where you have the option to "turn off computer" in bottom left and then either go into Stand-By, Turn Off Computer, or Switch User.

If I click onto Stand-By again, it will go over to Stand-By mode and my screen saver will come up and then a minute later the screen with my name comes on again.

This problem has just started in the past 3 weeks. Before, everything was fast coming on, getting on the net, email, and my PC would stay in Stand-By mode everytime I chose to do so.

I have cleaned out my Temporary I-net files, cleaned out all off my cookies, cleaned out the Recycle Bin, and ran Defrag, but none of that helped me with this problem.

I had tried a free trial of Tweakmaster around a month ago and now have downloaded Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) and free trial of Tweaking Toolbox, but have not really fooled with any of that.

Sometimes if I have my PC in Stand-By mode and the speakers are still turned, I somtimes hear a "pop" sound thru the speakers and sometimes when I hear this, that's when it will come back on from stand-by mode.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what is causing these problems and what I need to do to fix it ? ? ?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

A couple of interesting problems. And I can't give you a solution for either one right this moment. Not sure if they are directly related or two totally different issues.

Did the slow internet access and the stand-by issues show up at the same time?

If you open then close then reopen email, is it slow the second time? How about IE?

And for a little diagnostic checking on the internet issue - do the following after you boot up but before you start any applications like email, IE, windows explorer, etc.

- start~run~cmd
- ipconfig /all and write down the ip address given for your gateway and any DNS.
- ping {put in the gateway address here} > c:\ping-results.txt
- ping {put in the primary DNS address here} >> c:\ping-results.txt
- if you have a secondary DNS, do the same.

Note the > on the first ping to send results to the text file and >> on each additional one to append the new results to the file so we'll have all the information.

- Do a CAD (ctrl-alt-delete) and select task manager. Options and set it to always on top. Then click the processes tab and click the CPU col. heading so you see the highest activity items at the top.
- Start up internet explorer and watch for a process jumping to the top and taking lots of CPU. If any does, note which ones.

Post the contents of the text file along with any item from Processes that tried to take over for longer than a second or two.

Meanwhile I'll do some research on stand-by problems and if luck is with us, someone else will jump in with details about that. Otherwise I'll post after I find something.

Have you tried using Hibernation rather than stand-by?

 

Drag Racer7272: Kind of a wild shot, but your problem appearing about 3 weeks ago makes me wonder if by any chance you downloaded Microsoft Security Patch MS 811493 at about that time. Several people began contacting this forum at that time about various system problems that turned out to have been caused by that patch. Solution? Simple, just delete the patch. As I say, a wild shot, but it could be your answer.

 

I really do appreciate the quick replies on this issue.

Newt,
I'm sorry, but I really don't know anything about the diagnostic test. It looks as though some of this may be over my head.

quote:
Did the slow internet access and the stand-by issues show up at the same time?
Yes, although I did have my stand-by mode to *****-up a couple of times before all of this, but now, the stand-by mode won't stay up over 2-3 minutes. Like I said, it happened only a couple of times. I hear a deep poping noise coming thru my speakers when the stand-by mode shuts off and also, whenever I cut my ceiling fan off or on in my room, this popping noise can be heard thru the speakers.

If you open then close then reopen email, is it slow the second time? How about IE?
No, whenever I close my email and then reopen it, it comes up very quick and the same thing with IE, it's just whenever I shut the system down and then start it back up is when I have the problems.

quote:
- start~run~cmd
- ipconfig /all and write down the ip address given for your gateway and any DNS.
- ping {put in the gateway address here} > c:\ping-results.txt
- ping {put in the primary DNS address here} >> c:\ping-results.txt
- if you have a secondary DNS, do the same.

I'm sorry Newt, but I haven't got the faintest idea on what this does or how to do it. I don't know any abbreviations such as :

DNS, ping, gateway address, secondary DNS, CPU col.

I am trying my best to learn all of this, but right now I just don't know.

quote:
Post the contents of the text file along with any item from Processes that tried to take over for longer than a second or two.

I would do this, but I don't have a clue.

BOBBO,
This could very well be the problem. I will do my best to try and find out for sure.

One other thing that I wanted to add is, my brother did have a wireless router hooked up and was running another PC in another room and it was also giving my brother I-net service across the street. He ended up doing away with the other PC that is in the same house as my PC and then he also took his PC off of the router because he wasn't getting a real good pick up from 300'feet across the street, so now my one PC is the only one hooked up and it is back on the cable and not the wireless router.

I know that this shouldn't have anything to do with the problems that I'm having, but it all started about the same time.

Thanks for the advice so far and if anyone thinks of something, Please pass it on to me.

 

OK BOBBO,
I checked and came across the patch # Q811493, I removed it and went thru the following steps to do so, shhut the system down and Rebooted.

I clicked on my name and got to my desktop Icons. I double-clicked on IE and it flipped over as if I was going to get on the net, but the whole screen was white and the mouse pointer just sat there with a friggin "hour glass" spinning around and around, and then over 2 minutes later, my Home Page finally came up, so this didn't fix the problem. The problem still exists just the same.

Around 3 1/2 months ago, I had a problem with the mouse pointer turning into an hour glass about 3-5 minutes after getting on the net and that is the way it would stay. The only thing that I could click on would be the "red" close button. I never did find out what the problem was and ended up restoring my whole system and that fixed it.

I don't know what would be causing these problems when I don't sit here and mess with settings or anything like that. All I do is surf the net a little and that's about it.

I sure hope someone can come up with a fix for this problem that I am having.

Thanks again for your replies.

 

DR - no problem. I probably should have put in more specifics the first time.

- click on the start button~click on run~type in cmd and press enter. It will give you a DOS style window.

- at the prompt, type in ipconfig /all and you'll get a screen full of stuff. Included will be an entry for "default gateway" and probably two DNS entries. Just copy down the IP addresses because we'll use them for testing. They are at your ISP and should be quick for your PC to find.

- still in that ugly DOS window and using the IP addresses you just wrote down, you'll type in the ping command (says to your PC, "bounce a signal off this address and let me know how far away it is and how long it takes) followed by the address followed by a little strange code that will cause the results to be sent to a text file rather than to your screen. For instance, I run a router/switch to connect the wife & I to the internet. The first DNS server address I see from an ipconfig command on my system is 166.82.1.3 and here is the results of a ping of it. All I did was run the command I showed you above, went to my C: drive, opened the ping-results.txt file I'd created with the command, and copied the contents to paste here.

So I typed in Ping 166.82.1.3 > c:\ping-results.txt and the contents of the new file c:\ping-results.txt was

Code:

Pinging 166.82.1.3 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 166.82.1.3: bytes=32 time=323ms TTL=253
Reply from 166.82.1.3: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=253
Reply from 166.82.1.3: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=253
Reply from 166.82.1.3: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=253

Ping statistics for 166.82.1.3:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 323ms, Average = 95ms

This tells me that the first reply took quite a while but the remaining 3 were pretty quick. So I got a very small taste of the same problem that you have big time.

Any way - put your results in a post here and we'll see what sort of good things it will tell us.

 

To Bobbo. You write:

"if by any chance you downloaded Microsoft Security Patch MS 811493 at about that time. Several people began contacting this forum at that time about various system problems that turned out to have been caused by that patch. Solution? Simple, just delete the patch"

I have three questions, with your permission:

1) I just checked in Windows Update my installation history. It shows that one month ago I did two trials to DL and install the patch. First time it Failed. Second time it it Succeeded.

2) In IE/about, many updates appear, but this specific one does not. How comes? Does this mean the patch is not installed, despite all? BTW, it is not the only one that shows "Installation succeeded ", but does not appear in the IE Help/about list.

3) How do you delete an installed patch? Furthermore, how do you check if it is actually installed, short of looking in Help/about or in WinUpd?.

TIA,
haim

 

guivon: To check whether the patch ever got loaded or not, open Control Panel, then open Add or Remove Programs. The patch, if it's loaded, will appear down on the list as one of the Windows XP Hotfix entries.

If it is there, and you want to delete it, click on it to highlight it, then click on the Change/Remove button. That should do it, although you may have to reboot for the change to take effect.

Get back to us to let us know how everything works for you, please.

 

Bobbo, I am opening a new thread under the subject: Windows Update. The subject is loaded, and the present thread is not suitable.

Thank you for your help; I am learning a lot.

haim